Silently Interwoven Among the Leaves
by Cassiopeiia
Summary: She finds his personality peculiar and distinct, but that doesn't stop her from befriending the little boy, who eventually introduces himself as Itachi. Together, they find themselves meandering through the forest, chatting inconsequentially about trivialities and mundane matters. Strictly AU.


**Author's Note: This story is my attempt at writing something surreal and faintly spooky, in celebration of Halloween. I wanted to post this up before the weekend because I know I will have absolutely no time to write until after Halloween, but sadly I was unable to finish everything I wanted to get done :( For now, there will be no middle, but I might revisit this fic and add some embellishments. Enjoy!**

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Slowly, she came to understand Itachi's peculiar personality in snippets and flashes of insight. The young, handsome boy with whom she had formed an eccentric and unconventional friendship was stoic and guarded, his expression unusually wary and severe for an eight-year old child.

Their conversations were few and sparse in between, like threadbare strands of string, hanging in the stilted air between them. Itachi, she learned, tended to voice his discontent with heavy bouts of silence, and it was ultimately these lulls in conversation that defined their interactions.

If, for instance, she asked a question that he disapproved of, all she would receive would be a slight turn of the head and a small, almost inaudible, sigh of disapproval. As if Itachi was questioning her intelligence for voicing such an unnecessary inquiry in the first place.

Rin didn't mind though. She slowly grew accustomed to Itachi's small, reticent presence, which became a source of familiar companionship that one tranquil October autumn. Amidst the sprawling old growth of the forest, Rin and Itachi took slow, meandering walks together in the calm shade, as the leaves above slowly curled in on themselves, erupting into violent plumes of dusty red and sunset oranges.

During one of these walks, Rin ventured to ask Itachi more about his past.

"So," she began. "Where are your parents?"

This earned her a hard-eyed stare of steel, along with a deep, meaningful silence. Several moments passed, and Rin knew she had stepped on another touchy subject that Itachi had no desire to continue. After another beat of silence, she selected another question to press with.

"Where is your brother?" she ventured. It was still part of the topic of Itachi's heretofore unknown family, but she had found that sometimes probing the same subject from different angles occasionally elicited a rare but useful glean of information from the otherwise stoic little boy.

Itachi frowned, but the heavy silence that hung around him did not return. Instead, he cocked his head thoughtfully to the side, bangs brushing slightly across his pale forehead, and said, "He is away. Training."

Rin took that information and filed it away for later use. So the topic of his parents was forbidden, but surprisingly, not of his brother. "For what?" she asked, making sure to sound offhand and casually disinterested. Itachi never appreciated inquisitive questions.

Another stretch of silence, followed by a tiny sniff of discontent.

Rin tried again. "What is his name?"

At this, Itachi smiled softly.

"Sasuke," he murmured. "His name is Sasuke." The expression that overtook his face was at once nostalgic and melancholy, a shuttered expression swathed in distant memories. It made Rin's heartstrings tug uncomfortably in her chest and she found herself having to look away for a moment, into the dappled forest growth they were currently treading through.

She selected the shady grove of a particularly gnarled tree and allowed herself to plop down among the exposed roots and soft dirt, reclining her head into the wooden embrace of the trunk.

Silently, Itachi glided over and with a single graceful bound, launched his small body into the lowest of the branches, landing lightly. He tucked his child's form in, allowing his feet to dangle carelessly from the branches as he too leaned back into the trunk of the tree.

"He misses me," Itachi says from overhead, in continuation of their conversation.

Rin blinked her eyes open in soft surprise. Itachi rarely offered extraneous information and she was more than happy to seize the opportunity to ask: "Why don't you visit him more? Or why doesn't he come back to the village to see you?"

Itachi's slender legs kicked back and forth restlessly. "It's not that simple," he replied.

"How so?"

A deep, oppressive silence blanketed the two of them, and its foreboding disapproval told Rin she had once again gone too far with the wrong question. She backtracked and tried again. "I'm sure he would be very happy to see you again."

"You don't know that," Itachi retorted, amusement coloring his tone. "You've never met him before. You don't understand our sibling dynamics at all."

"How bad can it be?"

"What if I told you I'm a horrible older brother?" She could hear, rather than see, Itachi's lips curl around the worlds. "What if I told you I constantly hit him when he tries to get too close, or I always shoo him away the minute he wants to play a game with me?"

Rin cocked a head up and surveyed the little boy silently. His face was hidden in the dappled shadows of the tree, but she could make out the glint of his coal eyes from the darkness.

"I don't believe that," she said.

"No?"

She was quiet for a moment.

"Definitely not," she finally affirmed. "You don't strike me as the type. In fact," she said, thoughtfully playing with a strand of her hair. "I would wager a guess that you're actually a nice older brother."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I bet you spoil him rotten," she grinned.

Itachi remained silent, but it wasn't a forbidding silence imposed on the two of them when Rin overstepped her boundaries. Rather, he seemed to be pondering how to respond.

"Well, be it as it may," Itachi finally said. "This is a moot point, as Sasuke is no longer in Konoha."

"Where did he go?"

A beat passed.

"I don't know," Itachi whispered back softly.

.

…

.

Presently, they got to their feet and made their way through the rest of the forest. Itachi led her out of the forest and quite abruptly, Rin found herself standing at the edge of a sprawling metropolitan city. Dusk was falling and night had slowly reared its head, blanketing their surroundings in darkness.

"Wow, where are we?" Rin asked, craning her head back to take in the sight of the skyscrapers, sprawling upward to touch the clouds. Something seemed strangely off, but she couldn't give voice to her misgivings. Instead, it tickled her at the edge of her mind, faintly.

A pregnant pause.

Rin turned to Itachi questioningly-surely this question warranted a response-but to her bemusement, she found Itachi staring her back, with an intensity to his gaze that made her flinch.

"This," Itachi murmured, "is where you are intended to be."

She opened her mouth to ask what the hell he possibly meant by that when Itachi suddenly took her arm and tugged insistently, pulling her towards the heart of the skyskrapers.

"What-"

"Shh." Itachi hissed suddenly, placing a small hand on her mouth.

She looked at him, startled.

"You don't want to attract the ghosts prowling the streets," he explained softly, voice only a hair's breadth above a whisper. "Just stay quiet and close behind me. Don't talk out of turn and do not turn around to look at anything behind us. This is of the utmost importance. I might not be able to save you again if you do."

He surveyed her solemnly, and slowly removed his hand. Keeping his other hand firmly laced with hers, he guided her through the solemn, empty streets.

She kept her gaze focused on Itachi's tiny head, the moonlight glinting off his silken hair, but out of the corners of her eyes, she sensed, rather than saw, shapes splicing itself from the shadows, taking flight from beneath parked cars, street corners that had no lights.

But she remembered Itachi's warning and kept her eyes glued ahead in stubborn determination. Nonetheless, she could not help but feel the first prickling of an uneasy fear knot itself in the confines of her stomach. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

There was something watching them from the darkness.

Itachi seemed to take no notice. He plowed resolutely on, face turned forward, hair streaming behind him, taking easy light steps, always avoiding the darkest of shadows as they picked their way among the buildings.

Presently, he came to a halt beside a small alleyway and peered carefully inside. As Rin waited beside him, she felt again, a presence, slowly extracting itself from the darkness, crawling forward—

Itachi gave a particularly insistent tug and she fell behind him as he leapt into the alley. They were swathed in full darkness now. Her heart pounded erratic rhythms of fear in her chest.

"Shisui," Itachi whispered suddenly.

A light flickered weakly on, revealing another boy standing at the end of the alley. Even from this distance, Shisui looked to be at least a head taller than Itachi, his features also pale and aristocratic. In his hands, he clutched a small Bic's lighter.

"Yo," he saluted.

"Protect her for me."

Shisui turned and surveyed Rin up and down. "So this is the girl?" he sounded skeptical.

Itachi nodded quietly in assent.

"Hm." He cocked his head to the side. "Doesn't match the description." His judgmental tone demeanor made Rin bristle.

She wanted to demand what kind of fucked up description she should be matching, but Itachi, sensing her discontent, tugged on her hand to shut her up. He led her up to Shisui and placed her hand in the older boy's. She noted with surprise, the calluses running along Shisui's fingers, which in comparison to Itachi's elegant tiny hands, now seemed coarse and rough, like sea salt.

Itachi turned towards her, and in the wavering solitary flame of the lighter, she saw that he wore a gentle expression. "This is as far as I am able to lead you. Shisui will take care of you while I wait outside. Do not linger too long."

A sudden, new wave of fear enveloped her, biting into her vocal cords, extinguishing her voice. Mutely, she nodded.

Shisui looked at her. "Ready?"

She barely managed the tiniest of nods before he extinguished the lighter, plunging them into darkness.

.

…

.

"Rin?"

She turned around and watched as one of the shadows disconnected itself from the rest of the darkness. Itachi emerged, dropping lightly to land beside her. "Is something the matter?" he asked.

She shook her head, a little distracted. "No. Nothing is wrong."

But something in her voice must have given her away, because Itachi frowned lightly and said, "You don't sound like it."

"I had a long meeting." This was partially true. Her thoughts drifted over to her encounter in the dark, and she shuddered.

Itachi frowned, but made no comment. Instead, he tugged insistently at Rin's hands—this seemed to be a recurring theme—and guided her slowly back down the path, out of the city.

She plodded behind, lost in her own thoughts, muddled.

The sky was slowly starting to brighten, as the heavy navy darkness lifted its way to give rise to the gentle caress of dawn. The shadows were slowly decreasing in length, drawing backwards and into themselves, taking refuge from the warm rays.

She followed Itachi, who seemed to have the path memorized. He led through the deserted city down street after street, making the appropriate turns, watching for the occasional passing vehicle, silent and stoic as always.

As the first glimmers of the morning rays crested the top of Itachi's head, Rin suddenly froze in her tracks.

Itachi, she realized, had no shadow.

Her heart hammering, she watched with slowly unfolding horror as Itachi turned around to survey her. "Is something the matter?" he asked, concern coloring his tone.

She shook her head mutely.

"No?" Itachi tilted his head questioningly. Then slowly, ever so slowly, he smiled, a full, wide-lipped smile that revealed his teeth. All of them were sharp and pointed, like a shark's.

Rin found herself backing away, slowly. Itachi's eyes, suddenly gleaming and deadly, followed her movements with predatory precision.

He slowly sank into a low crouch, like a cat ready to pounce, lips curling around his sharp teeth in a snarl. He no longer resembled the round-faced solemn child she had first met; rather his features had crystallized and hardened, giving him an eerie, demonic leer.

"Itachi…" She whispered. "What are y-" her words were cut off with a shrill scream, as Itachi launched himself at her, hackles raised in a snarl, his teeth exposed and ready to tear.

She fell back and terror and knew no more.

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END.

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